Edward Alden

Expertise

Bio

Edward Alden is the Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), specializing in U.S. economic competitiveness. In addition, Mr. Alden is the director of the CFR Renewing America publication series and co-author of the recent CFR Working Paper Managing Illegal Immigration to the United States. The former Washington bureau chief of the Financial Times, his work focuses on immigration and visa policy, and on U.S. trade and international economic policy.

Mr. Alden was the project co-director of the 2011 Independent Task Force on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy, which was co-chaired by former White House chief of staff Andrew Card and former Senate majority leader Thomas Daschle. He was also the project director for the 2009 Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy.

Mr. Alden is the author of the book The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11 (HarperCollins), which was named a 2009 finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for nonfiction writing. The judges called it "a masterful job of comprehensive reporting, fair-minded analysis, and structurally sound argumentation."

Mr. Alden was previously the Canadian bureau chief for the Financial Times based in Toronto, and before that was a reporter at the Vancouver Sun specializing in labor and employment issues. He also was the managing editor of the newsletter Inside U.S. Trade, widely recognized as the leading source of reporting on U.S. trade policies. He has won several national and international awards for his reporting. Mr. Alden has done numerous TV and radio appearances as an analyst on political and economic issues, including NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, McLaughlin Group, NPR, the BBC, CNN, and MSNBC. His work has also appeared in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the Japan Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Toronto Globe and Mail. He is the coauthor, with Franz Schurmann, of Democratic Politics and World Order, a monograph published by Berkeley's Institute of International Studies in 1990.

Mr. Alden holds a master's degree in international relations from the University of California, Berkeley, and pursued doctoral studies before returning to a journalism career. He also has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of British Columbia. He was the winner of numerous academic awards, including a Mellon fellowship in the humanities and a MacArthur Foundation graduate fellowship.

Restoring America's Economic Competitiveness

Over the past half century, the United States has gone from being a relatively self-sufficient economy to one that is far more deeply integrated into the global economy. That transformation means that the prosperity and ultimately the security of the United States now depends far more on America's success in global markets. Yet government policy, especially at the federal level, has not adapted well to this new reality. In my forthcoming book, Competitiveness: America's Obsession and Why We Have Done So Little About It, I argue that the federal government has repeatedly failed to respond effectively to the competitive challenges of this new era on such issues as trade, currency, worker re-training, education, infrastructure and support for innovation. I am also pursuing these topics through the Renewing America Publication Series, which includes policy papers and progress reports on critical issues related to the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, blog posts, and a roundtable series on American competitiveness.

This project is made possible through the support of the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation.

Immigration Reform: Prospects and Challenges

The U.S. government has tried and failed over the past decade to reform its outdated and ineffective policies on immigration. The current system, based largely on a law passed by Congress in 1965, fails to attract immigrants needed by the U.S. economy and is ineffective at discouraging unauthorized immigration. Beginning with my book The Closing of the American Border on how the September 11 attacks affected U.S. immigration policies and continuing through the Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy, for which I was the project director, I have been examining the substantive challenges of creating an immigration system that boosts the U.S. economy while securing its borders. One critical piece of that challenge is better data and research that improves the measurement of enforcement effectiveness, and enhances public understanding of what enforcement can and cannot do to prevent unauthorized immigration. My work on immigration includes a recent CFR Working Paper on border enforcement, speeches, articles and congressional testimony related to immigration reform, as well as a roundtable series on U.S. immigration and visa policies.

This project is made possible through the support of the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation.

All Publications

Seven years after the 9/11 attacks, Canada is still trying to cope with the new border regime that has been an enduring legacy of the terrorist attacks. In this Ottawa Citizen article, Edward Alden urges President-elect Obama to begin rebuilding trust on border issues with Canada.

Since 9/11 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. immigration policy has been focused mostly on keeping out those we don't want. In this San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, Edward Alden argues that this single-mindedness has come with a high cost to our economy and reputation in the world.

"The war on terror has come home to America. But when did the war on terror morph into a war on illegal immigration? Today it is much harder for a terrorist to enter the United States than it used to be, but according to Edward Alden, it's also much harder for everyone else."

The next Canadian government must try to nudge the next U.S. administration back to the spirit of the 2001 Smart Border accords, which attempted to balance security and commerce concerns. Edward Alden writes that rebuilding trust between the U.S. and Canada over border issues will be critical for both countries.

In this Forbes.com op-ed, Edward Alden writes that there were many good reasons to strengthen U.S. border security after 9/11. However, maintaining this country's strength requires the relentless innovation that stems from keeping an open door to the most talented and ambitious people the world has to offer.

In this Globalist op-ed, Edward Alden warns that new regulations on immigration after 9/11 have come with the high price of keeping out the very people that the United States needs to maintain its position in the world.

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, travelling to the U.S. has become vastly more difficult and unpleasant. Edward Alden describes where the visa process has gone wrong and how this has impacted America's image abroad.

Edward Alden, a CFR trade and immigration expert, says it is wrong to pin blame on NAFTA for the ills of the U.S. economy. Most of the competition that has affected U.S. manufacturing has come from the rest of the world, he says.

The Democratic-led Congress and President Bush share rare common ground on immigration reform but will have to overcome concerns over an amnesty for illegal immigrants, says CFR Senior Fellow Edward Alden.

At this Princeton University event, "Immigration Policy, Deportations and National Security," Edward Alden discusses the changed relationship between U.S. national and border security after the attacks on September 11, 2001.